published in Shadow Eater: A Recollection shared here with permission

My uncle clips a crawdad to the back of my sister’s white t-shirt she wears over her bathing suit

To cover up the after school snacks she eats

She squeals and splashes everyone trying to get it off

Every Autumn we walk the Ware River from the edge of my grandparent’s property

I’m walking behind them in my white Keds saved from last school year for this very purpose

The water looks like rust in parts and tastes it too

My shoes are tea colored by the end of it

The water teal in parts

Water clear to the deep bottom in swirling pools, sometimes over my head

Some parts were so shallow my feet could nearly dry before the water would be knee deep 

Again…then to my shoulders, then I’d be floating

There were tall grasses, reeds, and water lilies.

Schools of tiny minnows whirled around us as we passed

But a tiny lobster? That was really something

I thought they only lived in the South

I’d seen some in the Virginia ditches along the street

I used nightcrawlers tied to string to catch them in those trenches

The silt was as black as it was gray, like half-burnt charcoal 

I caught up to sister and unclipped the crawfish from her shirt

Its tiny pinchers made it look like a scorpion 

It flapped its tawny tail and my sister screamed

I dropped the critter and we moved along again…

More to read in the collection Shadow Eater